


Battle Born

by paperstorm



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: The First Avenger, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, One Shot, POV Bucky Barnes, Romance, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 00:43:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17033048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: Steve kisses him. Just like that, like it’s a normal, every-day thing to have happened. Like it isn’t earth shattering.





	Battle Born

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this months ago as part of a larger fic I’m working on, but then details changed and it no longer fit in that narrative, so I figured I might as well post it as a fluffy one shot instead. Enjoy! <3

Bucky tries desperately to think of red painted lips, or breasts in a tight sweater, or the gentle sway of curvy hips in an A-line skirt, but he can’t. Every time he pictures those things it changes moments later to brilliant blue eyes, impossibly broad shoulders, strong hands that would feel so incredible if they were on his body. Memories from before get tangled up in it as well; a smaller, sicker body curled up against his on the couch, the way it had felt on cold nights when they took warmth from each other in the bed they shared, the heart of a lion in a fragile frame that was never big enough to contain all the fire that raged inside. It’s all Steve, big and small, sick and powerful, past and present. Bucky tries not to think about him. He fails instantly, and repeatedly.  
   
Steve’s hands are bigger than his, now, and if it was Steve’s hand between his legs instead of his own, Bucky’s not sure he could handle it. He imagines it anyway, as he strokes himself and sees stars behind his closed eyes. He hears himself moan. Hears himself sigh the word that has meant home to him for longer than he can remember; “Steve …”  
   
Then he hears a cough, the sound of someone choking on their own saliva, and his eyes fly open to see Steve swearing and quickly exiting the tent. Bucky’s stomach lurches. Instantly he’s nauseous and dizzy and panicked. He swears to himself, heart racing and mind reeling and every inch of his skin crawling like he’s covered in fire ants. He can’t breathe. On instinct he shoves himself back into his pants and rolls over to face the canvas wall of the tent, willing the ground to open up and swallow him and drag him right down into the fiery depths of Hell where he belongs. His brain fires excuses at him; different explanations he could offer, ways he could spin this or lie about it; anything to convince Steve and himself that he hadn’t seen what he saw. They’re all useless. There’s no way to get out of this. Bucky gags and brings his hand up to his mouth. His face is burning and tears spring to his eyes that he angrily wipes away.   
   
It takes him nearly five full minutes to convince himself to get up and face what he’s done. His best friend in the entire world, and Bucky has just destroyed it for the sake of a few minutes of hurried self-pleasure. He’s on the verge of considering running off across enemy lines and letting himself be shot by a Kraut. He would, if it weren’t the coward’s way out. And Steve would never forgive him. His legs feel unsteady underneath him as he heads outside, stomach still churning like he’s going to puke his guts out at any moment.  
   
He isn’t surprised to find Steve still standing there, in the mud and the darkness with his back turned to the tent and one hand dragging through his hair. He’s so enormous, since the serum. Towering and broad and rippling and Bucky almost misses the skinny kid with asthma and a heart murmur. He doesn’t miss the suffering Steve constantly endured, but he misses the Steve that needed him. He misses the Steve that would have forgiven him for this because he had nowhere else to go. This Steve decidedly doesn’t need Bucky. He could have Bucky reassigned to another troop tomorrow morning and never speak to him again.   
   
“Steve,” he says, his voice cracking pathetically over the name.   
   
Steve turns, and he fidgets uncomfortably but he shakes his head. “It’s okay. I shouldn’t have just walked in like that. It’s fine, though, forget it.”  
   
Bucky frowns and doesn’t understand. “What?”   
   
With a blush spreading over his cheeks that Bucky can see even in the low light, Steve says, “it’s … we lived together for years. Not, uh. Not the first time I heard you doin’ that. You probably heard me too. Embarrassing, but we don’t gotta make a big thing out of it.”  
   
Bucky stares at him. He’s being given a safe exit. A way to pretend they don’t both know Steve heard a lot more than what he’s saying. A way to sweep this under the rug and go about the rest of their lives pretending it didn’t happen. Given the circumstances, it’s the best possible scenario. Bucky would be an idiot not to take it. Bucky is an idiot. Because he can’t. In this moment, he hates himself too much to take the lifeline Steve is offering. He doesn’t deserve it.  
   
“I know you heard me.”   
   
Steve swallows. Bucky can hear it in the stillness of the evening, and can see the movement in Steve’s throat. He begins, “we can’t ...” and Bucky thinks he’s about to lie and say he didn’t, but then Steve continues, “we can’t do this here.”  
   
He starts walking, toward the thick thatch of trees behind their camp, and wordlessly Bucky trails after him. His heart beats into his throat as he follows, feeling like he’s being marched off to his death. When they’re far enough away to be out of earshot but not to have entirely lost the light from the camp, Steve turns, and his face is unreadable.  
   
“Why?”  
   
Bucky shakes his head; he doesn’t understand.   
   
“You’re right, I heard you. So, why?”   
   
Steve is really going to make him say it, but Bucky can’t. Tears fill his eyes again. “I’m so fucking sorry.”   
   
“Was that the first time?”   
   
It was far from the first time, and Bucky feels the shame of that fact burning so intensely under his skin he’s surprised his clothes don’t burst into flames. “No. I know it’s fucked, okay? I understand if you never wanna speak to me again. I’m sure you’re disgusted with me, I’m disgusted with me, and – ”  
   
“Buck.” Steve cuts him off authoritatively, and then, for no reason Bucky can make heads or tails of, he laughs. “You really don’t know?”  
   
“Don’t know what?”   
   
“I was so sure you must have suspected. I was always so bad at hiding it.”   
   
Bucky doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. Steve moves forward, slowly like he’s unsure, and when Bucky doesn’t move away, Steve’s hands fold over his biceps.   
   
“What are you doing?” Bucky asks.  
   
“Stop me,” Steve says softly. “If you don’t want it, stop me and we’ll never talk about it again.”  
   
Bucky’s heart is going so fast against his ribcage, he’s sure Steve must be able to hear it. Steve is so close, and Bucky doesn’t understand what’s happening because his brain is scrambling it, taking what’s right in front of him, taking the look on Steve’s face that he definitely recognizes from the times he’s seen girls looking like that, and saying, no, what you think is going on definitely isn’t what’s going on. Because it can’t be. Steve’s fingers come up to brush his cheek, and Bucky must have misinterpreted, or Steve is joking, because there is no way this is what it seems like.  
   
“Tell me to stop,” Steve whispers again.   
   
Bucky shakes his head, and Steve kisses him. Just like that, like it’s a normal, every-day thing to have happened. Like it isn’t earth shattering. Soft lips are pressing into his, one hand in his hair and the other wrapping right around his waist, pulling him in close. For a moment Bucky is so shocked that he’s motionless, unable to think or even breathe. Then something inside him snaps, and he hears himself whimpering, and he’s gripping the back of Steve’s uniform and kissing him harder, tongue slipping out to taste him, absorbing the mellow sweetness of those pretty lips and the intoxicating feeling of Steve strong and solid against him.  
   
Steve pulls back too soon on a breathless sigh, leaving his forehead against Bucky’s.   
   
“You …” Bucky begins, but never finds the rest of the sentence. His head is spinning.  
   
“I’ve wanted to do that since we were sixteen,” Steve admits, laughing through his nose. “It was just as nice as I always imagined.”  
   
“You imagined?” Bucky croaks. He can’t make sense of this. It can’t be possible, that Steve has wanted him for that long, and they’re only now figuring it out.  
   
“So many times. You really want it, too?” Steve asks, blinking at him in the moonlight, hopeful and innocent and Bucky wants it so much he could scream.  
   
“I was the one touching my dick and moaning your name, remember?” He tries to make a joke of it, but the admission lights a spark inside him; and inside Steve too, if the way his eyes flash is anything to go by.  
   
“You do that a lot?”  
   
“Jesus.” Bucky groans and regrets bringing it back up. He is not prepared to actually discuss it, certainly not twenty seconds after kissing Steve for the first time. “So, wait, you … since we were sixteen? Really?”  
   
“Yeah.” Steve shrugs, and the blush spreads further down his cheeks and neck; bashful and sweet. He’s always been so sweet. That didn’t change when he was given a new body.  
   
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Bucky asks. The thought of Steve suffering in silence for so long breaks his heart a little.   
   
“Because you were everything to me. You were all I had, Buck. If it made you hate me … I couldn’t risk losing you. Not exactly like this is a normal thing, is it? I’m not supposed to feel like this about you.”  
   
Bucky can’t argue with any of that. It’s the same paralyzing fear that he feels; the same fear of rejection and disgust and public ridicule and violence that he’s scared of even now, even with Steve’s newly-strong arms around him. There was a man who lived near them in Brooklyn who got himself found out to be secretly queer, the summer when Bucky was 22. He still shudders to remember what the neighborhood toughs did to him. There were others, that he’d heard about, who were ignored; allowed to live quieter, more unassuming lives, so long as they never made themselves too obviously public. But the risk that he and Steve would have been treated like the former is real and ever-present in his mind.  
   
He touches Steve’s bottom lip, heartrate increasing further when Steve chases after his fingers to kiss them. Everything Bucky has ever wanted, everything good and right in the world that Steve has always represented – that fiery spirit, all that light and bravery and passion – it’s all right here in front of him, thousands of miles away from home, in the mud in France, the greatest war the world has ever known raging just beyond the borders of their camp. It isn’t the right place or the right time. It’s dangerous and reckless and stupid. It could get them both court-martialed if they were found out. They could be executed; or worse, permanently separated. There are so many reasons not to do this, to just walk away and go back to being friends who don’t dream of each other in ways they shouldn’t. It’s the smarter decision. But Bucky’s never been smart. Steve was always the more intelligent of the two of them, but despite his big brain, he’s always been reckless, too.  
   
Bucky tilts his face up to kiss Steve again. Slower this time, less tentative but much more serious. It’s like sunshine, and warm afternoons at Coney Island with melted ice cream dripping down from cones over their wrists, and dark rainy evenings with Steve in his lap, in their water-stained apartment in Brooklyn, shades drawn and windows latched where the world couldn’t get to them. It would have been so easy, back then, for Bucky to just lean down and slide his lips against Steve’s. He’d ached for it, and knows now that Steve would have let him; would have loved it. He didn’t know, back then. They have so much lost time to make up for.

**Author's Note:**

> [come talk to me on tumblr if you want!](http://paper-storm.tumblr.com/)


End file.
